Thursday, May 04, 2006
CPUs in Need of CPR
I’ve nursed my old, ailing Gateway computer long enough. I am too impatient to put up with its unpredictability and incredible lethargy any longer. I’m irritated by its puny hard drive, and I’m fed up with its episodes of freezing. And I’m tired of waiting at least a full minute while it decides if it will really open a simple e-mail or load a web page. I’ve sweet-talked it, cursed it, and tried techno-bandaids to no avail. It’s time…yes, it’s time for it to go to that shameful, secret place behind the closed doors of the guest bedroom—the computer graveyard.
I am a little embarrassed to admit to being the caretaker of the graveyard. There are three outdated computers, along with a couple of monitors and broken printers, several keyboards, and audio speakers piled up in the corner of the room, somewhat hidden behind a well-placed easy chair. I don’t want to casually toss it all in the trash—it seems so wasteful and environmentally unsound, and it’s probably illegal too. Besides, I have benevolent plans for the equipment: maybe I can donate it to a school or charity, or give it away at a garage sale, although I question whether anyone would really want the stuff.
But I have read that I need to take care of the hard drives first. Apparently I need to erase them and then reformat them with gibberish so that no evil villain can extract my valuable personal information and steal my identity, or blackmail me, or laugh maniacally at my inane email. My computer literacy is limited when it comes to projects like that, although I’ve vowed to figure out how to do it…sometime. In the meantime, I’ll probably give a 21-moo salute to my hapless Gateway, then abashedly bury it in the back bedroom. There, in the lonely computer graveyard, it will become the latest in a long run of discarded and undisturbed computer remains.
Comments:
<< Home
If your computer is slow in loading when you first turn it on, perhaps you have too many desktop icons. Any more than about twenty will cause your computer to take an inordinately long time to boot up.
Sincerely,
Kim Kommando
Sincerely,
Kim Kommando
That was inciteful and incisive. I cannot think of a more accurate record of your laments.
Your biggest fan!
Your biggest fan!
You're graveyard sounds like my office. Stored there is an old server; several workstations from various incarnations of the x86 architeture; and the accompanying mice, keyboards, cables, etc. Someday I'll find a use for them. Sadly, they all came to be in my office graveyard for the same reason, they simply were not powerful enough to run some software vendor's program. Just like your Gateway.
Like you cyppy, I hate to discard functioning computer hardware just because it is slow. So how can these computers be used? As thin-clients. Thin-clients are basically computers that do not have a hard-drive and rely on a larger computer, a server(known as a terminal server), to process information. I think this is really cool. You can take an old computer and in a few minutes have it connected to the server running the latest software incredibly fast.
Many schools and charities run this sort of setup and would be glad to receive additional computers. You also could set up your own thin-client network from the pieces and parts in your graveyard.
As for your hard-drive, deleting files and formating drives does not remove data. Even filling the drive with gibberish, usually zeros (called zero-filling a drive), does not prevent someone from pulling data from the drive. If you want to ensure no "evil villain can extract [your] valuable personal data," get a hammer and smash the drive. That is the only way to make it unreadable.
Good luck in your travels through cyber-space!
Like you cyppy, I hate to discard functioning computer hardware just because it is slow. So how can these computers be used? As thin-clients. Thin-clients are basically computers that do not have a hard-drive and rely on a larger computer, a server(known as a terminal server), to process information. I think this is really cool. You can take an old computer and in a few minutes have it connected to the server running the latest software incredibly fast.
Many schools and charities run this sort of setup and would be glad to receive additional computers. You also could set up your own thin-client network from the pieces and parts in your graveyard.
As for your hard-drive, deleting files and formating drives does not remove data. Even filling the drive with gibberish, usually zeros (called zero-filling a drive), does not prevent someone from pulling data from the drive. If you want to ensure no "evil villain can extract [your] valuable personal data," get a hammer and smash the drive. That is the only way to make it unreadable.
Good luck in your travels through cyber-space!
Wow, thanks for the 411 on recycling computers! I'd never heard of "thin-cients". Maybe some of my discards will be resurrected from the graveyard!
J would gladly take any old computer parts off your hands!!
My old HD makes a clunka-clicka-clunka-clicka sound. Unfortunately it has quite a few digital photos on there that were not backed up.
My old HD makes a clunka-clicka-clunka-clicka sound. Unfortunately it has quite a few digital photos on there that were not backed up.
How liberating to know that I'm not the only one with a computer graveyard in a closet! And I didn't know that it was impossible to permanently delete stuff from the hard drive. Maybe you could just add that hard drive into an expansion slot in your new computer! More room for photos and videos! Woohoo!
Post a Comment
<< Home
